<Background:A number of studies of advertising have emphasized the orientation of
products and their consumption to males—their identity and sexuality.
Particularly evident is the focus of women’s products on securing men:
“Often the advertisements imply that the product’s main purpose is to
improve the user’s appeal to men, as the panty-hose advertisement which
claims ‘gentlemen prefer Hanes.’ The underlying advertising message for a
product advertised in this manner is that the ultimate benefit of product
usage is to give men pleasure” (Courtney and Whipple 1983:103-4). Nancy
Chodorow’s discussion of masculinity and femininity suggests that much of
the problem with the oppression of women and the maintenance of patriarchy
involves the male’s “repression and devaluation of femininity on both
psychological and cultural levels” (1974:51). The negative and deadly
implications of the male sex touted in popular advertising affect men as
well as women. Harry Brod’s consideration of pornography and male
sexuality suggests that the ultimate end of the degradation of women is
not simply the objectification of women, but a loss of intimacy in the
male and a alienation from the body (1995). An important recommended text
on male sex is John Stoltenberg's What Makes Pornography Sexy? In
the book, he details the "pose seminar," which is an attempt to get males
to see how females are demeaned in pornography. The
Ads: These ads are disturbing. They illustrate how so much of our popular
culture is geared at the please of male heterosexuality. Image 16, which
is a cartoon, is included as it illustrates the socialization of males as
a major factor in the development of problematic male sexuality. Ad 77 is
the advertising version of this cartoon. Ad 7 is a disturbing ad that
approaches pornography.Questions:
(1) Why is male sex often constituted as violence, competition, a
conquest? (2) In what ways do these male sex ads differ from general
sex ads?
How are the ads similar? (3) What strategies can be used to teach males
sexuality that is not focused on competition, degradation, and violence? >